Mathematics

On the other hand, changes in the participants’ approaches were slightly
unstable, e. g. later on multipliers found out that some of the participants
returned back to their former teaching styles and teach combinatorics using
only formulas. That could be due to the environment and requirements of their
schools. This factor must be taken into account in the future courses.
Most of the course participants who were led by multiplier GP were satisfied
with the course content and even expressed their intentions to use their final
works in their following attestation. On the other hand, unpleasant problems
occurred when some of the school headmasters rejected to reward the
successful course participants, although those teachers officially gained
credits for their effort.
3.7 Would multipliers recommend anything to other multipliers (what
should be better avoided, what is attractive for in-service teachers…)?
Multiplier IJ suggests organizing the course in various levels, i. e. divide the
participants according to their computer skills and level of their geography and
computer sciences content knowledge.
In general, multipliers recommend not wasting the participants’ time dealing
with boring and pro forma activities. Preparing adequate activities and tasks is
a never-ending story. Course participants appreciate simple experiments with
precisely described procedure steps, applets, presentations and ready-made
materials, which they could use in their own lessons without any significant
changes.
Also, multipliers find it very useful to observe a few participants’ lessons in
their working environment, and after such observations make a reflective
interview with them. It is necessary to provide the participating teachers with
support and constructive feedback. In connection with this, multipliers suggest
working on their diagnostics of teachers, which would in turn enable them to
improve their approach to participants.
According to multiplier GP it is inevitable to set fixed requirements on the
course participants in the very beginning. As for the course content, the CPD
should always meet real school conditions. It is handy when multipliers have
more ready-for-use materials, since it is often the case, the more course
participants there are, the less predictable their work pace is. Last but not
least, it is desirable to remain undaunted by negative acceptance or
misunderstandings.
Conclusions
The project PRIMAS multiplier concept implementation in Slovakian context
could be considered as successful. Multipliers had to experience at least three
levels of their competences concerning to new national concept of CPD:
organizational (course preparation to accreditation process), processional
(course implementation) and self-reflective level during and after the course
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